Cultural Identities

Activities

Context

Born in Managua, Nicaragua, second of five children, Belli’s
father was a businessman and her mother was the founder of the
Managua Experimental Theatre. From a privileged milieu, Belli spent
her primary school years in a Catholic school run by nuns in
Managua and was sent to Madrid, Spain, for secondary school,
graduating in 1965. She studied Advertising and Journalism in
Philadelphia and returned to Managua where she got married. The
first of her four children was born in 1969, a year before she
began writing and publishing her poems in the cultural supplement
to the Nicaraguan newspaper, La Prensa. From the beginning
her poems were considered scandalous since they were about the
female body and sensuality, topics which had …

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12745Gioconda Belli1Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.